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Chapter 15
Kennedy
“Any plans for the Fourth, Kennedy?”Anita Zachmeier breezed into the classroom.She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her wide linen shorts and wandered through tables and chairs, her eagle-eye gaze missing nothing.
It was her classroom, but it’d been tasked for summer school.I’d been teaching in it for weeks, cognizant of herwho moved my cheesementality.At the end of the day, I returned every toy, book, and learning aid to its original spot.
I tapped out of the grading reports I was updating.Mrs.Z had stopped in before, and she was so nosy I couldn’t work.I might take the laptop home and update the reports I would send home to parents when summer school wrapped up in a few weeks.
“I don’t have much planned for the holiday.”I had plans, but she was the last person I would tell.Maybe second-to-last after Derek’s parents.Third-from-last after my mother.
Liam and I were going to take the boys to the big Fourth of July parade in Mandan.The thing lasted almost an hour and a half, and we had to get there almost two hours early to nab a decent spot on the road.Then we were going to take them out to eat and soak up some restaurant’s AC.Whether we hit up a lake for some swimming or came home to relax and grill would be determined by how all of us were holding up.
I couldn’t wait.Yet, when anyone asked, I made it sound like I wasn’t straying far from home.Bruce and Willow had invited me over, but I was still stinging from Bruce wanting to take over my expenses.Willow had invited me over for supper once since that night, but I’d had plans with Laney.I didn’t tell them about my burgeoning friendship with her either.Then they might think I was blowing money I couldn’t afford.
Being around Laney was better than therapy.I had monthly therapy sessions, but one night on my couch with Laney and a couple of White Claws, and I’d come to the conclusion that I wasn’t ready to define what I felt for Liam and that was fine.He was important to me.Critical.And that was enough for now.
Mrs.Z watched me pack my things.
“You have holiday plans?”I asked to fill the empty silence.
“Nothing.It’s a noisy holiday.I go to the home and see my mom, then stay inside and avoid all the drunks.”
Okay.I packed my teaching laptop and gathered the spelling tests I had yet to grade.When I had worked at the school before, I’d brushed off Mrs.Z’s attitude.She was from a different time; she was set in her ways.Since I’d come back, she irritated the shit out of me.
My irritation rose higher and faster today.Maybe because the other day, as I was returning from a walk, Bruce had stopped by, and when I hadn’t answered, he’d let himself in.Worried something was wrong since my car was home.
His face had been flushed and his movements jerky.If he hadn’t been so fraught that I worried he was going to stroke, I’d have asked for my key back.I’d give it a week or two, then talk to him, as much as I was dreading it.But I had to start setting limits.
So, yeah, I was a little cranky.Mrs.Z and her constant disdain could frown in someone else’s face.Maybe she’d been a good kindergarten teacher thirty-five years ago, but she needed to find another job.One where she wasn’t responsible for the self-esteem of malleable children.
“Classroom assignments have come out.Have you heard?”
Ah.That was why she’d been coming in.During breaks, Mrs.Z was on her phone.At lunch, she was on her phone.But when it came to doing extra work—even checking emails—outside of her teaching hours, she claimed she didn’t have the capabilities at home.I respected her hard stance on not working for free outside the hours she was paid.I’d respect it more if it weren’t out of sheer laziness.That she came in so often during the summer had surprised me.Until Aspen had said Mrs.Z would make sure her time was unofficially comped.
That made sense.
“That’s always an exciting time.”I used to love seeing who I’d get in my classroom the next school year.I’d start working on ways to reach usually difficult students and keep them engaged.One of my favorite challenges was finding out what approach worked with a student whom other teachers struggled with.
Mrs.Z sniffed.“It’s going to be a tough year.”
“Oh?”She said that every year.
“It’s going to be hard.”Her breath gusted out of her.“Did you hear Liam Barron enrolled his kids?He planned on moving them, but decided he liked his grandma raising them, I guess.”She sniffed again.“Not a surprise.And I have not one of his boys but both.You’d have thought they’d have separated them.”
Pressure built at my temples.So much was wrong with what Mrs.Z had said.She knew nothing about Liam other than having had him in kindergarten over twenty years ago.I willed myself to speak calmly.One of us had to be professional.“The boys have been together every day of their lives.Perhaps the committee thought it best to ease them into school first, together, and then separate them at a later date.”
“Those two are too much for one teacher.”
I rose and hefted my bag to my shoulder.“You know them?”
“Everyone knows Liam’s boys.”
It was Coal Haven.Yes, they did.But that wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it.“You’ve met them?”
“I had Liam in class,” she said flatly, as if that should be explanation enough.
“They’re good kids.”How would Mrs.Z handle Eli’s speech?She was painfully blunt.I might appreciate that characteristic in my new world, but it had a place there.With five-year-old kids and an issue that could either be easily overcome without long-lasting effects or used to degrade his sense of self, tact was required.
